


Elfroot Tea

by Hezjena2023



Series: Rituals!Verse - Red Riding Hood [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: And she doesn't want to talk to you anymore, Character studies, Gen, Leave your Lavellan in a cave, Oneshot, Ritual!Verse, So you go to her mum for help, Solas being a sneak around his ex, Solas being a waffle, That time that Solas met Deshanna in the fade, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22200388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hezjena2023/pseuds/Hezjena2023
Summary: With a finger knotted with arthritis, Keeper Deshanna, draws a line across the glass jars in the chest tucked into the corner of her aravel. Spotting what is potentially the correct jar, she lifts it carefully and unfolds the dog-eared label to reveal her looping script. Powdered elfroot. She tuts at it happily and turns back to her kettle boiling on the stove. She does not expect there to be a figure in her doorway, a pale man dressed in green, the jar goes tumbling through her hands and smashes on the floor. Showering the wooden boards with powdered elfroot and glass.***Deshanna, the Keeper of Clan Lavellan, knows better than anyone not to make deals with wolves.
Series: Rituals!Verse - Red Riding Hood [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827190
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set during chapter 102 of Rituals of the Dalish.

With a finger knotted with arthritis, Keeper Deshanna, draws a line across the glass jars in the chest tucked into the corner of her _aravel_ . Spotting what is potentially the correct jar, she lifts it carefully and unfolds the dog-eared label to reveal her looping script. _Powdered elfroot._ She tuts at it happily and turns back to her kettle boiling on the stove. She does not expect there to be a figure in her doorway, a pale man dressed in green, the jar goes tumbling through her hands and smashes on the floor. Showering the wooden boards with powdered elfroot and glass. 

“Forgive me, I should not have intruded.” He says softly. He is too big for her _aravel,_ too tall, his head is slightly bowed as he stands just inside the door frame. 

She sighs, shaking her head, “no, you should not have. And yet I told you that you were welcome. What is it?” She mutters and rests her hand on her hip for a moment, looking down at the mess. She tuts unhappily at it and reaches across the little space to pull a broom from its rack on the wall. 

“Let me,” he says and reaches his hand out to take the broom from her. 

She pauses for a moment, her heartbeat echoing in her ears, “it’s fine.” 

“Please.” 

Swallowing hard, she draws back into the corner of her _aravel,_ her finger toying the enchanted ring on her finger. It’s whispering a warning, hissing, screeching that she should run. The echoing like tinnitus, ever ringing in her ears, the sound impossible to escape. She twists the ring off her finger and pockets it. 

The kettle boils, whistling into the air.

He does not take the broom from her, instead muttering something in a language she does not understand. The words sing to her, her blood recognises it and she grips the broomhandle and wishes it was her staff instead. The glass shards skitter across the floor of their own accord, building themselves back up around the powder and knitting the material back together. 

He offers her the jar. 

The spectre that haunted the dreams of her father, her sister, the monster that scared them both to death. That she always suspected would be the death of her as well. 

She does not take it from him. 

With too long limbs, his hand shakes slightly in the air at the effort of keeping the jar outstretched. He sighs as well and places the jar down on the slim rough wooden counter by the stove. “It’s about Iseshena,” he begins, carefully. 

Deshanna moves around him, keeping as clear away from him as she is able to in the constraints of the _aravel._ “Will you have some tea?” She asks, pulling a cup down from a hook screwed into the ceiling and offering it between them. 

“No, thank you.” 

She stiffens a little, but rummages for the implement to spoon the powdered elfroot into her mug and snaps the fire out at the same time with a flick of her wrist. As she busies herself making tea she asks, “what has my daughter done now?” With her back to him, she hides the small hint of amusement that has crept across her face. The implication is clear, the insinuation crystal. Her daughter, that loved the sad lonely wolf and found her heart shattered into pieces for the trouble. When she turns with her steaming mug, she notes that he is on edge, for a heartbeat she feels bad for baiting him. 

“Has she spoken to you of any strange dreams with the others?” 

“The others?” She asks as she blows out a cooling breath over her tea and perches on the wooden bunk that runs across the stern of her _aravel._

“Her,” he cringes, “gods.” 

She raises a single eyebrow and places her tea back down on the countertop, “you mean, aside from you?” 

His jaw works, even as pulls his hands behind his back, “yes.” The admission pains him. 

“Please, correct me if I have misunderstood. You’re asking me to spy on my daughter for you?” Deshanna wraps her tone in ice, as cold as she can make it. 

He closes his eyes and feels the Winter chill of her question. His shoulders move almost imperceptibly lower, slumping as though he had not realised what he was doing, “forgive me, I should not have intruded.” He repeats with a sharp nod, dismissing himself. The words clipped and strained, he’s wary, _he’s weary_. 

“She has not mentioned anything to me,” Deshanna says without looking up, knowing she is skating towards a precipice. She is betraying her daughter’s confidence, she can feel his stinging gaze on her and she doesn’t like it. 

“Thank you.” 

She feels the _aravel_ rock slightly as he steps away, leaving her. “Solas?” Deshanna calls, stopping him in his tracks and cursing herself for what she is about to do. _Never make deals with wolves._ “Since you are here, there is a question I need to ask in return.”

Solas braces himself and turns back, head still bowed in the doorway, his blue eyes stay on the ground. “Go ahead.” 

“It is personal,” she begins and sighs and stands, a head and a half shorter than him. “You do not need to answer.” She looks away, her face crumples up like she is sucking on sour lemon sweets. “Ancestors are laughing at me,” she curses under her breath, steels her nerves and looks back at him. 

His eyes seem shades darker than they were a heartbeat ago. He’s on edge and she can feel the tension radiating into the air. 

She almost puts her hand on his arm, but despite everything she cannot bring herself to touch him. Searching his face, she asks, “how are you?”

He blinks at her, eyebrows furrowing and expecting a trap. “What?” 

“How are you, are you eating well, sleeping well?” 

“I am,” he shifts, clearly uncomfortable, then nods firmly. “Excuse me Keeper.” He says with a last look at her with obsidian dark eyes. A moment later the doorway is empty, and he is gone. 

Plucking her elfroot tea back up with both hands and settling back onto the edge of her bunk, Deshanna smiles as she inhales the earthy scents of her mug. Her daughter certainly knows how to pick them. She catches sight of the little carved bear statue, whose unseeing glass bead eyes stare past her, “oh don’t look at me like that.” She clucks at the representation of Dirthamen. “It’s not my fault he always looks so sad.”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set shortly after chapter 133 of Rituals of the Dalish.

_ He is here, he is here. He is alone _ . Keeper Deshanna’s ring whispers to her in a tone that is distressed, but all together over the occasional occurrence of the Dread Wolf at her door. 

Deshanna clicks her tongue against her teeth and marks her place in the treatise she was reading. She left the bundle of notes on the countertop as she fills up the kettle with fresh water and heaves the heavy pot onto the hob. Igniting the gas with a snap of her fingers she gets down two cups from the cupboard. Rummaging down in her chest of herbs, until she finds the jar she requires. 

And then she waits, patiently, as the kettle hisses and outside Solas works up his courage to knock. 

When he does, finally, rapt his knuckles on the painted wood of her Aravel door, she glances up and twists the little statue of Andruil she keeps our to face the wall. Casting the figure a small, apologetic look. She twists her Keeper’s ring on her finger and opens the door to him. 

‘Perfect timing,’ Deshanna clucks at him with all the hearty politeness that old-age affords her, ‘the kettle has just boiled. Will you take tea?’ And she buries her smile at the grimace that he tried to hide.

‘No, thank you.’ He tells her stiffly, and he is still unsure of the Araval. Still too big, too tall in the space, despite now numerous visits. He looks at the kettle, whistling on the hob, his eyes seem to flash darker than usual, but that might be the flicking light as the hob is extinguished. ‘This should not take long, I do not wish to disturb you.’ To business it seems, though he hangs in the doorway like an unwelcome guest. ‘It is about Silvalerin.’ 

Keeper Deshanna pauses for a moment at hearing her father’s name coming from Fen’Harel’s mouth. It is not what she would have expected, but her surprise trickles into a numb sort of turmoil as she realises that her father and nephew carried the same name. Her heart hurts, she clutches a wrinkled hand to her ribs and sits down heavily on the chest full of her herbs. ‘Sil reclaimed his name?’ She asks, less to Fen’Harel and more to the universe. Wishing she could direct the query to her sister’s son. It comes out less as words and more as a soft desperate sigh. 

Solas shifts in the doorway, giving her a look of recognition at Sil’s name. He enquires quietly, ‘it was a reclamation, was it taken from him?’ 

‘He was not Unnamed,’ Deshanna breathes and pauses. She peeks up at the Dread Wolf that is now pouring hot water from her kettle into her pottery mugs, she could almost believe he was harmless. 

He places her cup besides her carefully, caringly. And lends back against the counter waiting patiently for her answer. 

Slowly, Deshanna finds her voice again. ‘No, he gave it up. My sister named him after our father, he died from an illness-‘

‘The Dread?’ Solas interrupts and then looks down ashen faced, as though realising his mistake. 

‘And how do you know about that?’ Deshanna asks sternly, dropping to her strict Keeper’s voice unconsciously. 

He raises a single eyebrow. 

_ He is here, he is here. He is before you.  _ Her ring chimes in as her fingers clench to claws around her cup. 

‘Iseshena told me.’ 

‘Of course she did.’ Deshanna mutters. She sits back against the sloped wall of her Araval. Noticing that despite rejecting her offer of tea, Solas has poured himself a cup. She blows a small breath upon the steam, more a sigh, and takes a sip of the bitter liquid. ‘For Sil to have reclaimed his birth name means he no longer thinks he can escape his fate.’ 

It takes the Dread Wolf a moment to piece together the scattered parts, but when he does, his shoulders slump as though a great weight is resting upon them. He looks tired, dark circles under his eyes. 

Since he is already here and since it seems that she has already insulted him, she asks the question that has been playing on her mind. ‘Are you really going to tear down the veil?’

Slowly, he turns to look at her. The Dread Wolf fixes the Keeper with a hard look that runs off her, and when he finds her undiminished in his presence he tells her stiffly. ‘The price of inaction is greater.’ 

‘Isn’t the price high enough?’ She scoffs, feeling her temper bubble under the surface. ‘The humans only came after the Veil was formed, do you honestly think they will survive?’

‘Honestly? No, I do not think that they will. Neither will dwarves on the surface, unprotected by layers of rock.’ 

She swallowed hard, realising that she had not expected him to have thought about it. Almost silently, she whispers. ‘And the elves?’

‘Those elvhen that have endured will adapt, as we did before.’ 

He knows that is not the answer she was looking for, so she presses onward. Her voice cracking under the tension of the moment. ‘And what about Iseshena?’

Holding the cup of elfroot tea to himself, he looks at the contents as though all the fight had left him. Solas cannot bring himself to look at Iseshena’s mother as he tells the cup of tea. ‘I am uncertain if she will survive, but it is unlikely, too much magic has been lost.’

Deshanna says nothing for a very long time. Her rings whispers, but she cannot hear it over the ringing in her eyes. He is the fear, the dread - the one that grows on a shipwreck smashed on the Storm Coast, in the broken ruins of a once bustling market town, buried in the empty dunes of a desert. The dread cultivated from the places that resist life, that snuff it out. 

Closing her eyes, she offers her unsolicited advice. ‘If you were of my Clan, I would counsel that some mistakes cannot be fixed, cannot be undone. You can only learn to live with yourself.’ 

‘Keeper, I do not wear this burden gladly, it brings me no pleasure. But, someone must do this dreadful thing. Only I have both the ability and the knowledge.’ 

Deshanna wants to demand if the kindness afforded to him is to be repaid in the blood of her Clan. She wants to rage at him, to appeal to him to save her daughter, to beg him to save her. But, she knows the stories, and she knows it would be like appealing to the salt flats to give up drinking water. It is simply not in his nature. 

Instead she only asks him, ‘why did you come here?’

‘It was brought to my attention that Silvalerin was writing letters to Iseshena. It is just empty corresponce, but I came to deliver them.’ From the inside of his coat, he pulls out a bundle of letters, taller than his mug and wrapped in twine. He deposits them there, on the table, and stands - his head bent in her Araval that is too small for him. 

‘Thank you.’

‘Please, do not thank me.’ 

When he is gone, and when her ring is silent, Deshanna stands and picks her way across the little space. She picks up the mug, intending to get it washed and returned to the little cupboard. But, it is already smashed. Thrown against the far side of the Araval, the dregs of the elfroot tea sliding down the wall. She slumps, heavy into the stool by the table and curls over, clutching Sil’s letters to her chest. 

  
  



End file.
